Monday, December 07, 2015

The Classical Grammy Nominees, 2016

The list of nominees for the GRAMMY AWARDS for 2016 has been released. Even reports in major newspapers that say “see the complete list of nominess” don't bother to mention the classical categories, so here are – drum roll, please – the Classical Music Grammy Nominees.

The winners will be announced on President's Day, February 15th, 2016, on CBS-TV.

Please note the selection of links and choice of photographs for this post are purely arbitrary.

74. Best Orchestral Performance
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 – Manfred Honeck, conductor (Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra) Reference Recordings

Dutilleux: Métaboles; L'Arbre des Songes; Symphony No. 2, 'Le Double' – Ludovic Morlot, conductor (Seattle Symphony) Seattle Symphony Media

Shostakovich: Under Stalin's Shadow - Symphony No. 10 – Andris Nelsons, conductor (Boston Symphony Orchestra) Deutsche Grammophon

Spirit Of The American Range – Carlos Kalmar, conductor (The Oregon Symphony) Pentatone

Zhou Long & Chen Yi: Symphony 'Humen 1839' – Darrell Ang, conductor (New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) Naxos (see YouTube video here)

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75. Best Opera Recording
Janáček: Jenůfa – Donald Runnicles, conductor; Will Hartmann, Michaela Kaune & Jennifer Larmore; Magdalena Herbst, producer (Orchestra Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin; Chorus Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin) Arthaus

Monteverdi: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria – Martin Pearlman, conductor; Fernando Guimarães & Jennifer Rivera; Thomas C. Moore, producer (Boston Baroque) Linn Records

Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Diana Damrau, Paul Schweinester & Rolando Villazón; Sid McLauchlan, producer (Chamber Orchestra Of Europe) Deutsche Grammophon

Ravel: L'Enfant et les Sortilèges; Shéhérazade – Seiji Ozawa, conductor; Isabel Leonard; Dominic Fyfe, producer (Saito Kinen Orchestra; SKF Matsumoto Chorus & SKF Matsumoto Children's Chorus) Decca

Steffani: Niobe, Regina di Tebe – Paul O'Dette & Stephen Stubbs, conductors; Karina Gauvin & Philippe Jaroussky; Renate Wolter-Seevers, producer (Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra) Erato

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76. Best Choral Performance
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis – Bernard Haitink, conductor; Peter Dijkstra, chorus master (Anton Barachovsky, Genia Kühmeier, Elisabeth Kulman, Hanno Müller-Brachmann & Mark Padmore; Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Chor Des Bayerischen Rundfunks) BR Klassik

Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 – Harry Christophers, conductor (Jeremy Budd, Grace Davidson, Ben Davies, Mark Dobell, Eamonn Dougan & Charlotte Mobbs; The Sixteen) Coro

Pablo Neruda - The Poet Sings – Craig Hella Johnson, conductor (James K. Bass, Laura Mercado-Wright, Eric Neuville & Lauren Snouffer; Faith DeBow & Stephen Redfield; Conspirare) Harmonia Mundi

Paulus: Far in the Heavens – Eric Holtan, conductor (Sara Fraker, Matthew Goinz, Thea Lobo, Owen McIntosh, Kathryn Mueller & Christine Vivona; True Concord Orchestra; True Concord Voices) Reference Recordings

Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil – Charles Bruffy, conductor (Paul Davidson, Frank Fleschner, Toby Vaughn Kidd, Bryan Pinkall, Julia Scozzafava, Bryan Taylor & Joseph Warner; Kansas City Chorale & Phoenix Chorale) Chandos

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77. Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Brahms: The Piano Trios – Tanja Tetzlaff, Christian Tetzlaff & Lars Vogt; Ondine

Filament – Eighth Blackbird; Cedille Records

Flaherty: Airdancing for Toy Piano, Piano & Electronics – Nadia Shpachenko & Genevieve Feiwen Lee, Track from Woman At The New Piano; Reference Recordings

Render – Brad Wells & Roomful Of Teeth; New Amsterdam Records

Shostakovich: Piano Quintet & String Quartet No. 2 – Takács Quartet & Marc-André Hamelin; Hyperion

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78. Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Dutilleux: Violin Concerto, L'Arbre des Songes – Augustin Hadelich; Ludovic Morlot, conductor (Seattle Symphony) Track from Dutilleux: Métaboles; L'Arbre des Songes; Symphony No. 2, 'Le Double'; Seattle Symphony Media

Grieg & Moszkowski: Piano Concertos – Joseph Moog; Nicholas Milton, conductor (Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern) Onyx Classics

Mozart: Keyboard Music, Vol. 7 – Kristian Bezuidenhout; Harmonia Mundi

Rachmaninov Variations – Daniil Trifonov (Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Philadelphia Orchestra) Deutsche Grammophon

Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! – Ursula Oppens (Jerome Lowenthal) Cedille Records


Daniil Trifonov, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra: Excerpt from recording session with Rachmaninoff "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"

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79. Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte; Haydn: English Songs; Mozart: Masonic Cantata – Mark Padmore; Kristian Bezuidenhout, accompanist [sic]; Harmonia Mundi

Joyce & Tony - Live From Wigmore Hall – Joyce DiDonato; Antonio Pappano, accompanist [sic]; Erato

Nessun Dorma - The Puccini Album – Jonas Kaufmann; Antonio Pappano, conductor (Kristīne Opolais, Antonio Pirozzi & Massimo Simeoli; Coro Dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia; Orchestra Dell'Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia) Sony Classical

Rouse: Seeing; Kabir Padavali – Talise Trevigne; David Alan Miller, conductor (Orion Weiss; Albany Symphony) Naxos

St. Petersburg – Cecilia Bartoli; Diego Fasolis, conductor (I Barocchisti) Decca

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80. Best Classical Compendium
As Dreams Fall Apart - The Golden Age Of Jewish Stage And Film Music (1925-1955) – New Budapest Orpheum Society; Jim Ginsburg, producer; Cedille Records

Ask Your Mama – George Manahan, conductor; Judith Sherman, producer; Avie Records

Handel: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, 1740 [includes three concerti grossi, hence a "compendium" album rather than choral or operatic] – Paul McCreesh, conductor; Nicholas Parker, producer; Signum Classics

Paulus: Three Places of Enlightenment; Veil of Tears & Grand Concerto – Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor; Tim Handley, producer; Naxos

Woman at the New Piano – Nadia Shpachenko; Marina A. Ledin & Victor Ledin, producers; Reference Recordings

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81. Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Barry: The Importance of Being Earnest – Gerald Barry, composer (Thomas Adès, Barbara Hannigan, Katalin Károlyi, Hilary Summers, Peter Tantsits & Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) NMC Recordings

Norman: Play – Andrew Norman, composer (Gil Rose & Boston Modern Orchestra Project) Track from Norman: Play; BMOP/Sound

Paulus: Prayers & Remembrances – Stephen Paulus, composer (Eric Holtan, True Concord Voices & Orchestra) Track from Paulus: Far In The Heavens; Reference Recordings

Tower: Stroke – Joan Tower, composer (Giancarlo Guerrero, Cho-Liang Lin & Nashville Symphony); Track from Tower: Violin Concerto; Stroke; Chamber Dance; Naxos

Wolfe: Anthracite Fields – Julia Wolfe, composer (Julian Wachner, The Choir Of Trinity Wall Street & Bang On A Can All-Stars); Cantaloupe Music [Anthracite Fields won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2015]

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72. Best Engineered Album, Classical
Ask Your Mama - Leslie Ann Jones, John Kilgore, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum & Justin Merrill, engineers; Patricia Sullivan, mastering engineer (George Manahan & San Francisco Ballet Orchestra) Avie Records

Dutilleux: Métaboles; L'Arbre des Songes; Symphony No. 2, 'Le Double' – Dmitriy Lipay, engineer; Alexander Lipay, mastering engineer (Ludovic Morlot, Augustin Hadelich & Seattle Symphony) Seattle Symphony Media

Monteverdi: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria – Robert Friedrich, engineer; Michael Bishop, mastering engineer (Martin Pearlman, Jennifer Rivera, Fernando Guimarães & Boston Baroque) Linn Records

Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil – Beyong Joon Hwang & John Newton, engineers; Mark Donahue, mastering engineer (Charles Bruffy, Phoenix Chorale & Kansas City Chorale) Chandos

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3, 'Organ' – Keith O. Johnson & Sean Royce Martin, engineers; Keith O. Johnson, mastering engineer (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony) Reference Recordings

73. Producer Of The Year, Classical
Blanton Alspaugh – Hill: Symphony No. 4; Concertino Nos. 1 & 2; Divertimento (Peter Bay, Anton Nel & Austin Symphony Orchestra); Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil (Charles Bruffy, Phoenix Chorale & Kansas City Chorale); Sacred Songs Of Life & Love (Brian A. Schmidt & South Dakota Chorale); Spirit Of The American Range (Carlos Kalmar & The Oregon Symphony); Tower: Violin Concerto; Stroke; Chamber Dance (Giancarlo Guerrero, Cho-Liang Lin & Nashville Symphony)

Manfred Eicher – Franz Schubert (András Schiff); Galina Ustvolskaya (Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Markus Hinterhäuser & Reto Bieri); Moore: Dances & Canons (Saskia Lankhoorn); Rihm: Et Lux (Paul Van Nevel, Minguet Quartet & Huelgas Ensemble); Visions Fugitives (Anna Gourari)

Marina A. Ledin, Victor Ledin – Dances For Piano & Orchestra (Joel Fan, Christophe Chagnard & Northwest Sinfonietta); Tempo Do Brasil (Marc Regnier); Woman At The New Piano (Nadia Shpachenko)

Dan Merceruio – Chapí: String Quartets 1 & 2 (Cuarteto Latinoamericano); From Whence We Came (Ensemble Galilei); Gregson: Touch (Peter Gregson); In The Light Of Air - ICE Performs Anna Thorvaldsdottir (International Contemporary Ensemble); Schumann (Ying Quartet); Scrapyard Exotica (Del Sol String Quartet); Stravinsky: Petrushka (Richard Scerbo & Inscape Chamber Orchestra); What Artemisia Heard (El Mundo); ZOFO Plays Terry Riley (ZOFO)

Judith Sherman – Ask Your Mama (George Manahan & San Francisco Ballet Orchestra); Fields: Double Cluster; Space Sciences (Jan Kučera, Gloria Chuang & Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra); Liaisons - Re-Imagining Sondheim From The Piano (Anthony de Mare); Montage - Great Film Composers & The Piano (Gloria Cheng); Multitude, Solitude (Momenta Quartet); Of Color Braided All Desire - Music Of Eric Moe (Christine Brandes, Brentano String Quartet, Dominic Donato, Jessica Meyer, Karen Ouzounian, Manhattan String Quartet & Talujon); Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Ursula Oppens); Sirota: Parting The Veil - Works For Violin & Piano (David Friend, Hyeyung Julie Yoon, Laurie Carney & Soyeon Kate Lee); Turina: Chamber Music For Strings & Piano (Lincoln Trio)

Tuesday, December 01, 2015

NaNoWriMo, "In Search of Tom Purdue," and a Proustian Epiphany

This has been the second year in a row I have not engaged in the frenzy of creative writing known as NaNoWriMoNational Novel Writing Month – when too many people around the world (or at least across the nation) attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days.

I say “too many people” because there are enough novels out there already that are not being read and many more trying to find a publisher (or, given modern technology, alternative ways of reaching a readership).

But it is an important opportunity that, for many, can realize a dream – because there's a joke somewhere that practically everybody has a novel-in-progress in their computer, don't they?, something they're even more secretive about than that journal they're keeping.

For many of us during that month, we discover how hard writing really is, especially writing something that comes with as much baggage as a NOVEL. I'd often wanted to “take the challenge,” but always found work getting in the way. So finally, after having been laid off and finding myself in November with nothing to do, I figured “why not?”

For each of six successive Novembers, I tried to write 50,000 words. It doesn't seem like that much when you figure, in 30 days, that amounts to about 1,667 words a day and since, when I'm really into the blogging, I usually end up around 3-5,000 words (and that's including time researching a topic) in a productive day. So what's a mere 1,667 words, right?

Whether you finish the novel in 30 days is not important – the point is, you got 50,000 words or more written. You found the discipline to sit down and schlog it out. The problem comes at the end of the month when you look back over it and decide (a.) this is crap or (b.) well, I'll probably never actually finish it anyway. And (c.) now what?

Last year, I had a pretty good excuse for not being a WriMo with heart surgery scheduled for the middle of November. Not only would the week of the surgery and the ensuing recuperating put a crimp in my daily word count, I'd probably feel like shit and it's hard enough to write a novel when you don't feel like shit. Unless you're going to write 50,000 words about having just had heart surgery and why you feel like shit. I'm sure the world can do without my insights.

This year was different: it was a conscious decision not to participate because I was already working on a new novel. Now, I could've said “ah, I can use this time to add 50,000 words to my new novel” but the problem with trying to bat out an artificial word-goal is you lose track of the content and the craft. And besides, after six years of this - and I'm on my 5th novel, now, anyway - I began to think, “maybe I don't need NaNoWriMo now.”

That sounds a little hubristic, but I've started figuring things out.

First of all, I knew from other people's experiences that you don't sit down and open a blank page and say “okay, what will my novel be about?” on November 1st. There's an amount of time you spend planning it, outlining your ideas, building your characters, working on your settings and whatever other details may be important to whatever you want to write before you write the first word.

Unless you're going to write a stream-of-consciousness novel in 30 days just about whatever pops into your mind and what happens during those 30 days you're writing, you need to plan – and depending on that plan, that may involve “research.” You don't have time to be bogged down chasing facts and the last thing you need to do is get caught up in the google whirlpool before you realize – crap – there goes another day, shot...

Secondly, and perhaps more challenging, is the idea that you do not go back and reread what you've written and start editing – you do that after the 30 days is up. You're working on the rough draft of a novel. So does it count if you write 50,001 words by 11:59pm November 30th and then, during your first edit-pass, you cut out 15,786 of them? Or more? Hmmm...

Plus I have a really weird way of writing but I don't want to go into that, here. Let it suffice that while I pay very keen attention to word-count, it's the structural word-count I'm concerned about, not just the number of words I've pounded out on my computer. So instead of writing 1,667 words a day – where any 1,667 words will do – I may only get 377 words done. But I'm more convinced those are a good 377 words.

What was it Truman Capote said about Jack Kerouac's style? “That's not writing – that's typing.”

But then I'm not a fan of either, so perhaps it's a moot point.

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I managed to finish my third “Dr. Kerr Novel,” The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben, part of a series of classical music appreciation comedy thrillers, in October last year, barely a month before my surgery. The day after my surgery, I was ready to start reading again, and the pile of books by the recliner in my living room was comprised of “research” or “potential research” for the fourth “Dr. Kerr Novel.” This had begun taking shape even before I'd completed the third one. Unfortunately, by the time I felt ready to begin, I had so many new plot lines I'm already thinking about the fifth one and I hadn't even begun the fourth yet. That back burner can't be far enough away...

My main character is this retired music professor and reluctant music detective, Dr. T. Richard Kerr (from ricercare, “to search”) and in the new novel, In Search of Tom Purdue, this friend of his has disappeared, perhaps the victim of the evil organization known as SHMRG who's figured as the collective villain in all the other novels so far (originally a take-off on James Bond's Soviet-era SMERSH). Unfortunately, I'd already killed off Klavdia Klangfarben who'd figured villainously in the previous three novels, so I needed a new threat.

Thus was born the shadowy organization of The Aficionati – the 1% of the classical music-loving elite who wish to keep the enjoyment of great music for themselves. Any similarity between them and the Illuminati is quite welcome.

There is also this “Proust thing” going on – having resumed re-reading In Search of Lost Time once again, reading Swann's Way (the first of its seven volumes) in 2013 for the fourth time because it was the Centennial Year of its publication, and then starting the second volume in the recent (and wonderful) Penguin Edition translation by James Grieve shortly after my surgery. Should I mention Proust's original French title is À la recherche du temps perdu?

It's not that I'm trying to condense a parody of Proust's 1,414,975 words into a single novel – which, I've predetermined, will be about 196,418 words (only 498 words less than Swann's Way) – but more on that at some other time. There are numerous themes in Proust's work that correspond to my characters and the situations they find themselves in, not to mention issues of creativity (musical and otherwise) as well.

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While I don't want to get into the plot, just now, much of what fuels my creativity is coming up with the characters' names. While Tom Purdue (temps perdu, lost time) is a given, I'm not borrowing from Proust for other characters except that the love of his life is a dancer named Violetta Diehl whom his friends call “Odile” from not hearing her name quite correctly the first time. Now, “Odile” is the Black Swan that misleads the hero in Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake. But the ballet's main swan is “Odette.” And the woman who becomes Charles Swann's mistress and later wife in Proust's novel is Odette deCrecy.

Most of my characters' names are puns – usually musical or literary or just word-play: if the reader “gets” them, fine; if not, the names can be funny or perfectly normal names. Some were chosen just because they sound funny – Klavdia Klangfarben, for one; Inspector Hemiola for another, based on musical terms.

But others have a connection in some way, like the local police detective in The Doomsday Symphony, Jenna Sainte-Croix (from “je ne sais quoi”) or her colleague, police officer, Sgt. Lou Tennant. There's the villain in The Lost Chord called Tr'iTone (after an interval known as the “devil in music,” the tritone), or the diminutaive Asian-American detective from the International Music Police, Yoda Leahy-Hu. The viola-playing villain of The Labyrinth is Nepomuk, one of the more common names in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) and the middle name of numerous Bohemian-born composers like Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

So I started building a world of characters around Tom Purdue, a not-yet-retired composer and estranged friend of Kerr's. There's his student intern, Amanda Wences (his amanuensis), and his ex-wife Sue Stenuto (from the musical term, sostenuto, sustained) who didn't like being known as Sue Purdue (just say it fast, you'll get it). The local police in the town of Marple – complete with numerous Agatha Christie puns, including Tom's Aunt Jane – are mostly based on dances, aside from Detective Laura Narder (not related to one of the many TV police show franchises): there's Alejandro Tango and Jamie Reel, and the old-timer, Captain Freddie Gagliardo (a.k.a. Grumpy Cop), Paula Naize and Maureen (“Mo”) Zerka, among others. And of course there's this novel's detective from the International Music Police, Bond – Sarah Bond – who may or may not dance to a stately sarabande.

Then there's the dance school in Marple with Patty Beret and Rhonda Zhomme, based on the ballet steps pas de bourrée and rond de jambe. I'd already used P.K. Arabesk and Tom LeVay in The Lost Chord, unfortunately.

There are also two friends of Purdue's and Kerr's, reunited from their days at graduate school. One has gone on to become a second-rate musicologist, Martin Crotchet, the other a pianist named Dorothy (“Dottie”) Minnim – both names coming from the British terms for quarter note and (dotted) half note. While I often try to imagine certain TV characters or actors taking on my characters' personas so I can develop reasonable dialogue around them, I've thought of Martin Crotchet as being played by Freddy from the BBC comedy Vicious but as if played by Martin Clunes's Doc Martin instead of Ian Mackellan. I'm not sure I can maintain that, however, so I'm sure he'll mellow out quite soon.

Then there's the Kapellmeister, a take-off of Dr. Who, and his search for the mysterious Belcher Codex, a theory text originally written by early American composer, Supply Belcher (and that's his real name!) but let's not get into that just yet...

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So, let's look back over what I've done this past month – completing the 2nd chapter, writing all of the 3rd chapter and getting the 4th chapter started. So far, I'm 42,187 words into the novel but I began working on it sometime in late-June. But during the past month when I considered a 610-word day productive, I only managed to rustle up 14,518 words, barely 29% of the NaNoWriMo Challenge's Goal.

Sigh...

On the other hand, figuring how much is left and that I'm only in the introductory stages, I'm not sure I want to contemplate there are still 154,231 words to go or how long that would take, at 14.5k words/month, to finish.

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On a related note, yesterday was the 1st day of deer hunting season here in Pennsylvania - an actual holiday when kids have the day off from school! - and I recalled the time I referred to the 1978 film “The Deer Hunter” as “The Deer Slayer” which friends thought was a clever social comment on the whole hunting mind-set. At the moment, I hadn't made the connection that James Fenimore Cooper's 1841 novel The Deerslayer which I had never read was a more significant point of reference to me than a 1978 movie which I had never seen.

I went to my bookcase to look for my grandfather's copy of the Cooper novel. I was pretty sure he had owned all five of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and since I had inherited his books, I figured it would make sense to read at least a few pages of it “on the day,” however much about deer hunting it was (as I recall, it has more to do with scalping in the pioneer days before the American Revolution).

I was not prepared for the wave of nostalgia when I opened the book and saw my grandfather had inscribed his name in a fine precise hand (he would go on to become a draftsman) on the inside front cover with his address in Steelton PA (Dauphin Co.) on October 14th, 1902.

There was something about holding a 113-year-old book in my hand that my grandfather had read when he was probably 15 years old.

The pages were deeply yellowed and the type – an incredibly fine font to begin with already, almost like reading microfilm – was considerably faded, making it difficult to tell an 'e' from an 'o' or a 'c' though despite its age, the binding was quite sturdy, yet. I managed to read the first 19 pages, despite my one cat's best efforts to make that impossible.

Then I noticed the hand-made “Library of” stamp he had drafted in India ink, a double-bordered square with his name and town, with “Shelf No. 1, Book No. 1,” the numbers written in red pencil for presumably easier correcting should they find a different location on another shelf someday.

Was this the first book he bought himself and started his collection with?

my grandfather's house, today
Today, I googled the address and found not only does the house still exist, it is for sale. I was able to take a “virtual tour” of the house and its rooms though there is nothing my grandfather or his family could recognize from it, after all the remodeling that has been done (I'm not sure a family living there in 1950 could recognize any of it, for that matter). It has apparently been subdivided into two units (my grandfather was the youngest of a large family so I'm sure they occupied the entire building) with different sidings and different roofs including an addition onto the front converting part of the original front porch into an inside room and, on the back, a treated lumber deck.

My grandfather, who married my grandmother in 1911, bought his first house in the 1920s and in 1946 built the house I knew in my childhood, when I used to stretch out on the floor in front of his bookcase and page through all these different books of his even though I was only 4 or 5 years old (I'm sure I spent little time with Cooper's Deerslayer then as it had no illustrations).

It was, for a moment, my sitting there with his book in my hand, looking at a current photograph of the house he lived in when he read it, feeling a bit like Proust and his madeleine, that little pastry eaten with a cup of lime tea when he was a middle-aged man wondering whether he'd ever succeed at becoming a writer or not; then, without being aware of it, taken back to a childhood memory, sitting in his great-aunt's home, eating a madeleine dipped in lime tea, and from there, recalling the details of a life that would eventually become his novel.

Sigh...

- Dick Strawser





Saturday, September 19, 2015

“Sons of Janus,” a Novel About Tchaikovsky: A Reader's Report

There's a climactic scene in Henrik Ibsen's play, Ghosts, in which the widow Mrs. Alving argues with her family's long-time spiritual adviser, Pastor Manders, over the repressive advice he had given her in the past.

“It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrines,” she tells him. “I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing unraveled. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.”

This is how I feel when I'm reading a book in which I find factual errors: if this is wrong, how can I trust anything else you write, now?

Reading Sheila Seymour's novel about Tchaikovsky, Sons of Janus, I was constantly being faced by the mindful ghost of Mrs. Alving.

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Usually I don't write reviews. But I received an e-mail from a publisher who wondered if I might be interested in reviewing a “novel about Tchaikovsky” which they'd published, one that, he said, was "a fictional retelling of Tchaikovsky’s life based on extensive research by Sheila Seymour" that uses “material unavailable during the Soviet Era.”

As a composer who also writes “classical music appreciation comedy-thrillers,” I was curious, wondering what that “material” might be, so I said “sure, send me a copy.”

The marketing blurb mentions the author uses this “material” to write “a vivid and lively account of Tchaikovsky and his turbulent, terrorist[-]plagued,[sic] world.” A novel is usually fiction and rarely comes with a bibliography, much less footnotes, but of the sources Ms. Seymour acknowledges, only two authors have Russian names even if the titles are given in English, and the footnotes generally seem to acknowledge quotations from reviews quoted in Anthony Holden's 1995 biography or from the usual collections of letters; those from the Russian authors are historical quotes regarding Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III.

But of the more controversial aspects of Tchaikovsky's life, nothing in the way of such documentation. Are all the suggestions of his character as a gay man in a repressive society fiction? What about all the comments regarding his infatuation with young boys? When the blurb says “material unavailable during the Soviet Era,” one assumes something salacious that has been guarded to protect the image of the hero.

I have not read Holden's biography “which,” one reviewer writes, “reads like a novel.” It also claims it makes use of previously unknown “material” that the composer's death was the result of his being ordered to commit suicide by a “Court of Honor,” powerful lawyers and fellow alumni from Tchaikovsky's law school, a plot detail that appears only in passing on the final two pages of the next-to-last chapter of Sons of Janus where it is dismissed along with numerous other pernicious rumors.

The idea Sheila Seymour's book is “a novel about Tchaikovsky” of course means the author is fully capable of creating whatever she wants because, after all, this is a novel and those curious frissons you the reader can experience occur because you never know whether this is true, possibly true, or completely the invention of the author.

(Disclaimer: as a writer of “classical music appreciation comedy-thrillers,” as both of you who follow my blog would know, I love bending the reader's mind by using facts as accurately as they exist or are perceived by a public raised on the mythology of, say, Beethoven, and then swirling off into the world of possibilities where facts end, often with some outrageous plot devices - most of which are parodies - that may involve time-travel or parallel universes or Tardis-like manipulations of transdimensionality. Much of what I write about Beethoven's Immortal Belovèd in The Lost Chord or The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben is based on fact, given the fact we have no idea about her identity from what does exist. So the “fact” that they had a child is a fiction (possible, who knows? – there were questions regarding one Belovèd candidate's daughter to suggest mine is not an original idea) but no one can wonder about the seriousness with which I propose her identity or how it is revealed. So, yes, as a writer, I'm used to the concept of “creative non-fiction” where non-fiction blends into fiction.)

The structure of Sons of Janus is a series of reminiscences about the composer told from the viewpoints of friends and family (and one non-friend which was a brilliant stroke to include). Like a scholar's Festschrift, the actual focus of the collection does not appear in his own words except through their viewpoints. The reader is often left to draw one's own conclusions.

Some of these are more successful than others: the most insightful is Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's friend, boss and mentor (and for a time, roommate); the most humorous is Alexei Apukhtin, a poet and “known homosexual” from Tchaikovsky's early adulthood who gives a campy description of Gay Life in the 1860s; the saddest is a brief entry by Tchaikovsky's much put-upon wife, Antonina Miliukova; the snarkiest is by the oldest son of Nadezhda von Meck (Tchaikovsky's patron and famous correspondent; a woman he never met), a son bewailing the composer's true intentions behind accepting his mother's largesse especially when it means, in the light of financial reverses, less money for him to inherit. The weakest is Anton Rubinstein, the great pianist and composer who was also Tchaikovsky's teacher, who comes off as a guest lecturer on the historical background for those “Tchaikovsky and His Times” segments – and a not very compelling one, I feel.

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The first thing I noticed, paging through the book after I opened the envelope it arrived in, was that Ms. Seymour consistently spells Tchaikovsky's first name not as “Peter” (as it would be in English) or “Pyotr” (as it would be transliterated from the Russian Пётр, the “ё,” often “understood” by Russian speakers, pronounced “yo”) but as... “Petyor”?

Now, I've been reading about Russian music since I was 10 and reading Russian novels since I was 12, and though I never learned to speak the language, I could read the alphabet well enough to sing in a Russian Orthodox church choir for three years and teach a college course on the “Art and History of Russia and Eastern Europe” for the University of Connecticut's Slavic Center. And never have I seen the form “Petyor.”

So I asked a Russian-born friend of mine named Peter if he were familiar with it and he said no: his name might be spelled Peter, Petr, or Pyotr, but he'd never seen “Petyor.”

Russian, of course, is a language that uses an entirely different alphabet from the rest of Europe. One can, in fact, spell “Tchaikovsky” hundreds of different ways phonetically depending on the language it's being transliterated into. In fact, in Russian, it is spelled Чайковский which begins with a letter representing the “ch” sound in English, but yet we most often see it with a “Tch” in German or a “Tsch” in French, and also with a “v” or an “ff” or a “French w” which is why some people pronounce it “chai-COW-skee.”

But how you get “Petyor” out of Пётр, I couldn't tell you.

That said, two other names are consistently “mistransliterated” throughout Sons of Janus: Antonina Miliukova becomes Antonia Miliyukova; and Alexey (or Alexei) Apukhtin becomes Alexey Apukthin.

In the first case, Antonina and Antonia are two different names, though both are feminine forms of “Anton.” The “iu” in Miliukova is one syllable (a diphthong), but in Miliyukova, the “iyu” is two syllables. The “kh” in Apukhtin is a consonant pronounced in Russian like the Scottish “ch” in loch, but “kth” is not a Russian sound, perhaps just a dyslexic typo.

Tchaikovsky's brother-in-law Lev Davidov and his family live on an estate in Ukraine called Kamenka. On p.56, another of Davidov's estates is spelled Verovka; on p.57, it is Verbovka. The latter is correct.

On p.70, within 5 lines of text, the name “Vladimir” is spelled three different ways: Vladimyr, Vladymyr, and Vladymir – all three different men with different (and correctly spelled) last names, but yet it's the same first name (a little consistency, if you please). On p.148, Mme von Meck's son is Vladimir von Meck, so we have four different ways of spelling the same name. Similarly, Nikolai Rubinstein is always “Nikolai”, but on p.73, it's Nikolay Kondratiev.

On p.154 and p.162, the ancient city of Nizhny-Novgorod is spelled Ninzhy-Novgorod.

On p.74 and in the “Selected Obituaries” covering three pages at the end of the book, Klin, where Tchaikovsky made his own country home and where his museum would be founded, is spelled “KILN”! Seeing this before I started reading the book but already wondering who “Petyor” was, I admitted to thinking “Ah, perhaps this isn't a book about the composer, after all: it's about the potter, Ilyich Tchaikovsky!”

Oh, and about that “Ilyich” or Ильич (which even Russian friends of mine spell “Illyich”): this is a patronymic, not a middle name, and means literally “the son of Ilya.” So on p.33, introducing “Papa Illya Petrovich Tchaikovsky,” the composer's father (Ilya, son of Pyotr, meaning the composer was named for his grandfather – again, a Russian-speaker would know the “e” is really “ё” or “yo”), the caption for two photographs reads, “Papa Illych Tchaikovsky” which would mean Papa Ilya is his own son and however confusing the Russian alphabet may be to a Westerner, even that is impossible. (Just kidding: somebody named Ilya Ilyich would be like saying he's Ilya, Jr.)

In formal conversation, someone might be referred to as, say, Mikhail Gregorievich or Ekaterina Gregorievna – first name and patronymic – rather than just Mikhail or Ekaterina but there's also a collection of nicknames or “diminutives” available that could be used by friends and family who might call these two people Misha or Katya. Ms. Seymour chooses to avoid the use of the patronymic except in the composer's case. His brother Anatol (or Anatoli) is usually referred to familiarly as Tolya. Brother Modest, to whom Tchaikovsky was quite close, is never referred to as anything but Modest, yet if you read their letters, he is almost always “Modi”. And nobody in this novel, family or friends, ever calls the composer by his expected nickname, Petya.

* * *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Then there are numerous misspellings or “wrong words” – substitutions like “canon” (a musical procedure) for “cannon” (p.103), “riskier” for what I presume should be “risque” (p.148) or the constant and annoying misuse of “premier” for “premiere” – too many to go into here.

I have to admit, before this, I have never read a book with a red pen in hand: there are 72 pages in my copy of Sons of Janus with red marks (sometimes several per page) out of a total of 187 pages, not counting the chronic use of “Petyor” or the misspelled names of his wife or the poet-friend used throughout.

On p.84, Nikolai Rubinstein is complaining about the composer's partying lifestyle when he needs to be working on a new opera, when “other guests brought back reports of the pleasures to be encountered there: fancy picnics, walks, late nights playing bezique, impromptu musical evenings – and lots of rowdy drinking sessions, seriously lots of rowdy dinking sessions.” Now, even with the repetition, someone not familiar with the hedonistic lifestyle of 19th-Century Russian homosexuals may wonder what exactly “rowdy dinking sessions” entail...

One of my pet peeves is the phrase “reached a crescendo” which I found on p.101-102. One does not simply “reach” a crescendo. In music, a crescendo is the gradual increase of volume over a period of time (a few beats, several measures). To use “reach a crescendo” means you still have to go through the crescendo itself, having reached the point where the crescendo begins, not ends. Instead, the expression could be “reached a fortissimo” or something, if you want to keep a musical allusion. “Reached a climax” would probably be better. Commonly misused, to most musicians and music-lovers reading it, it is cringeworthy.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Speaking of which, now, Mrs. Alving, let's look at purely factual information.

On p.65, Nikolai Rubinstein is telling the story how Tchaikovsky was commissioned by his publisher to make piano arrangements of 50 Russian Folk Songs. The author writes, “The collection had already been worked over by Balakirev and so Tchaikovsky did the decent thing, dedicating his version, Fatum, to Balakirev and sending him a copy for comment.” Fatum, however, is a completely different piece, a dark orchestral tone poem called “Fate” which Tchaikovsky destroyed after its premiere (yes, someone was able to reconstruct it from a set of long-lost orchestral parts, so the piece does still exist). It has nothing to do with the 50 Russian Folk Songs other than the fact it was composed around the same time and Balakirev's name is associated with both of them.

On p.69, Ms. Seymour writes, “Tchaikovsky turned all his initial euphoria and subsequent grief and despair into the dominant themes of a new piece of work, a ballet based on the classic love story Romeo and Juliet...” One of his most famous works, Romeo and Juliet is an overture-fantasy and was never intended as a ballet. Yes, Prokofiev wrote a ballet based on Shakespeare's lovers in 1935, but that is outside the sphere of this novel.

On p.95, Antonia Miliyukova [sic] dates her entry, describing her delights as a social-climbing wife of a famous composer about to receive her husband's “boss” and closest friend into their new home, June, 1877. They were married on July 18th, 1877.

In the chapter supplied by Anton Rubinstein, historical facts about the Crimean War are glaringly inaccurate. On p. 107, the author writes “Tsar Nicholas died whilst on campaign in the Crimea in 1855.” In fact, Tsar Nicholas I, famous as a soldier in his training, his rule, and his role as a father, had not left the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg where he died of pneumonia after having caught a chill at a wedding.

On the same page, she writes about the peace conference “in Paris, the city Tsar Nicholas had entered in triumph after the defence of Moscow and fall of Napoleon” in 1812. Unfortunately, that was Nicholas' older brother, Tsar Alexander I. Nicholas didn't become tsar until 1825.

On p.130, Mme von Meck talks about the difficulty of being a mother trying to make advantageous matches for her sons. She writes, “Eleven of my eighteen children have survived infanthood.” That alone is remarkable, almost as remarkable as her having had eighteen children; but, astounding as that may seem, she actually had “only” thirteen children...! She married her husband when she was 16 and he died about 26 years later. Let's not make this any more difficult for the poor woman than it already was.

On p.137, Mme von Meck writes about Tchaikovsky's new opera, The Maid of New Orleans! This is an opera about the historical 15th Century Joan of Arc who never got near New Orleans. The opera is The Maid of Orleans. (Insert “LOL” here.)

On p.146, Mme von Meck describes events following the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, a.k.a. The Chief, writing about the occasion “when Anton Rubinstein performed Petyor's Second Piano Concerto which he had dedicated to the Chief. Rubinstein's delivery was exquisite – tender and poignant.” Actually, the pianist who performed Tchaikovsky's new concerto was his own student, Sergei Taneyev. The conductor was Anton Rubinstein. Now, granted, she doesn't say he was the pianist, but the implication seems to be the performer here was the soloist, not the conductor.

On pp.146-147, Mme von Meck also mentions that Nikolai Rubinstein had arranged for Tchaikovsky to write something for the Great Exhibition of 1883 – actually, that was scheduled for 1882 – either “a general Opening Overture, a piece to mark the Tsar's Silver Jubilee... and [or?] a cantata to mark the dedication of a cathedral commissioned in 1812 to mark the defeat of Napoleon. None of the choices had enthused Petyor, but he had opted for the third” (that would be the cantata, a choral work). She later mentions its title, The Year 1812 which is the original title of the Festival Overture we know simply as “The 1812 Overture.” A completely orchestral work with an added brass band and even a barrage of cannons but without chorus, it is not a cantata – though it quotes national anthems associated with both the French and the Russians, both of which are anachronistic but I digress. Regardless of the date Mme von Meck mentions, the overture was premiered in August of 1882.

On p.154, in the chapter supplied by Nadezhda von Meck's embittered son, Vladimir, he writes of the composer's niece who is going to marry one of his younger brothers, thus uniting the families which delighted Mme von Meck and infuriated her eldest son. He describes his future sister-in-law Anna, daughter of Lev and Alexandra Davidov, as “as pernicious and divisive as her brother” even though, clearly, since Anna was the daughter of the composer's sister, “Petyor” would've been her uncle. This relationship is mentioned again on p.158.

On p.155, the same embittered Vladimir von Meck complains – after the Tsar bestowed on Tchaikovsky an annual stipend of 3,000 rubles, making Mme von Meck's monetary gifts to him unnecessary – that Tchaikovsky then donated the money she'd given him to write a piece he premiered in Prague to a local musicians' charity: “it was just too much. We were not keeping only him... but now out-of-work Hungarians as well!” As astute a businessman in the railroad industry as Vladimir von Meck would have been, he would certainly have known that the people of Prague were not Hungarians.

On p.12, Ms. Seymour states she uses only “New Style” dates to avoid the confusion caused by Russia's not having adopted the modern calendar the rest of Europe was using until after the 1917 Revolution. But this creates a problem when guest history lecturer Anton Rubinstein returns for a post concerning Tsar Alexander III, dated “Christmas 1893,” beginning “Tchaikovsky is dead.” Now, according to the Russian Orthodox church calendar in the “Old Style,” Christmas is celebrated in January and even today, the Orthodox Church still officially observes its holidays according to the Old Calendar. So January of 1893 means Tchaikovsky would still be alive for another 11 months: he died November 6th, 1893. If she wrote, “December, 1893,” fine. But she didn't.

Well, I think that's enough.

Now, given all of this, I would say Ms. Seymour's novel might be more enjoyable to read with a little editing and fact-checking, in which case I might consider recommending it. As it is, as currently published by Austin Macauley of London (you can read more about them, here and here), what do you think I should suggest?

I mean, what would Mrs. Alving do?



- Dick Strawser






Thursday, April 02, 2015

The Lost Chord: Conclusion

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, the unexpected reappearance of Peter Moonbeam, after hiding himself in a basement storage room where he inadvertently found Heidi Gedankgesang's body, proves a distraction following the death of Tr'iTone allowing N. Ron Steele to make an escape after he realizes the CD in his pocket isn't a copy of Rob Sullivan's completed opera, Faustus Inc, after all, but a porno DVD. This gives Kerr an idea where to look to find the CD-Rom of Rob's opera - back at the old castle. It turns out Widor, pinned to the stage floor by the collapse of Tr'iTone's corpse, starts telling the IMP everything he knows. There's not much left to do, now... except...

= = = = = = =
Chapter 62

Lionel followed the officers as they escorted him out of the room once he admitted seeing Tr'iTone snap Scarpia's neck – very careful to distinguish between what Tr'iTone did and what Dhabbodhú did. He was only a witness, he assured them, but they still wanted him back at the Festspielhaus for questioning.

When we didn't move from the computer, looking over a file Lionel had opened and started explaining to us, D'Arcy asked if we wanted to be dropped off at the hotel.

"Actually," I said, looking up, "there's something Cameron and I need to wrap up here, if you don't mind, whatever it was Tr'iTone was looking for: give us half an hour?"

D'Arcy nodded and said he'd send somebody back to pick us up. "Watch where you step, though," he smiled.

And you'd better be very careful with that CD," I said, laughing. "It's the only copy we've got, you know. Plus Steele and his agents are still out there looking for it!"

D'Arcy patted his pocket as if checking on the disc and waved, then turned to disappear down the hall.

Cameron and I returned our attention to the realization Lionel made of the Knight's Tour map on Tr'iTone's computer and compared it to what we could read on the statue's base.

"I think this is where Lionel read it wrong – see?" I said, pointing to one of the numerous blocks. "So, the goal isn't where the Festspielhaus is, according to his map. If we start the knight's tour there – yes, see the small 'x'? That's where the old crypt was located."

"But if that was the starting point, where exactly was the goal?"

We followed the path across the screen.

"Look at that," Cameron said, "the goal's actually just outside the castle!"

"Yes! Just across the road from the castle's courtyard," I practically shouted, "opposite where the Beethoven statue originally stood!" I grabbed our priceless artifact, and we hurried outside into the courtyard.

"Remember how Mahler told them he was standing by a tombstone – there! – and looked into the face of Beethoven?"

"OMG," Cameron shouted, "look there!"

"Where?"

"The sun – it's already coming up!"

Our long night was coming to an end! Cameron climbed up onto the pedestal as far as he could go.

The sun's first rays already lit up a spot across the road, deep inside what looked like a cemetery.

According to the brochure this was the old Armenfriedhof: a burial ground for poor musicians associated with the academy. Odd there would be a Potter's Field so close to Schweinwald Castle.

"Who would be buried here, d'you think?" Cameron carefully scanned the horizon.

"More importantly, do you see a fountain?"

"What about a spring? There's a small stream running along the edge..."

He pointed and followed its course until it disappeared into the woods.

"Even in this light, it looks creepy."

The stream didn't strike me as that impressive and if there's no fountain, what was all the fuss about, then? If Harrison Harty kept this secret journal, they were looking for something. Considering the end of the journal's missing, maybe they actually found it? And did Mahler keep the missing part?

"I wish I were taller," Cameron complained. "Those bushes block my view."

Those bushes probably weren't there in 1880.

"Of course! Wait – what is it Beethoven's statue would've been looking at?"

Cameron tried to maintain a line of sight between the statue's pedestal and a point he saw in the distance as we hurried through the bushes and brambles toward who knew what. Looking back toward the barely visible pedestal, I tried imagining how tall the statue was, over 130 years ago.

These first tombstones were from the 1600s but those farther away were relatively more recent, added later in time, the undergrowth unmanageably dense after having not been maintained for several generations.

The birds began to sing in the pale dawn light, reminding me how Beethoven once walked around Heiligenstadt's countryside, translating sounds of nature he no longer heard into his Pastoral Symphony. Perhaps this peaceful view and rural beauty was the inspiration he sought? Was that all there'd be to find?

There it was – a carefully inscribed tombstone, one relatively free of the bushes and brambles that covered everything else.

I parted the weedy grass and saw one line but nothing else:

O du der mein Brunnen des Gedankenblitz bist

a line from the artifact: "You who are my fountain of inspiration."

Had Sechter's society buried Beethoven's Immortal Belovèd here, then erected his statue so he could gaze on her forever? No one knew what bonds they'd broken once they removed that statue.

Brunnen, of course, could mean either flame or source but also fountain, the translation best determined by its general context, though in this case it was not a fountain of magic waters, the 'quick pill' Tr'iTone hoped to find and had willingly killed for, that mysterious unknown, unknowable force of creativity.

I placed the model for Beethoven's statue in front of the tombstone and covered it with grass for protection. Her identity, tantalizing the world since Beethoven's death, should remain a secret.

"Perhaps some things are best left unfound."

We walked back in silence toward the road, listening to the birds.

Climbing out from the brambles, I saw a car driving toward us. It was Harper and Fictitia, here to take us to the hotel.

"Harper says they do a smashing breakfast!"


EPILOGUE

It was late July when we returned to Germany for the premiere, ready to take in the last week's rehearsals, arriving refreshed but cautious after a brief chance to unwind at home. Cameron and I, bringing Dylan along, decided we'd meet LauraLynn in London and relax a while in the countryside.

At the height of tourist season, half our plane was filled with American college students on a concert tour, a lively if rowdy bunch always ready to break out into song.

D'Arcy met us at Munich's airport where I noticed several faces from Schweinwald Security in the crowds around us. None of them, I'm pleased to admit, looked even remotely like Dhabbodhú.

The train-ride to Kempten was also uneventful beyond our anticipation of seeing all Rob's hard work finally reach fruition.

The weather was often warmer than usual with heavier thunderstorms than expected, whatever arguments you believed about 'climate change' aside. If the storms didn't coincide with rehearsals, they dampened our free time. All in all, they seemed uncomfortably ominous with their frequently intense lightening: we often kept looking over our shoulders. It was not great weather to be rummaging around at the castle, a destination not high on my list, but then LauraLynn didn't care to walk through the Festspielhaus basement, either.

The damage from the bomb blast had all been repaired, D'Arcy explained, the outside wall's hole no longer visible and all the passageways and rooms downstairs returned to a reasonable functionality. Every rehearsal, now, took place on stage, so there was no reason we should have to visit the area. The only thing LauraLynn wanted to do was to leave a rose in one storage room in Heidi's memory, on the blood-stained divan once used in Rosbaud's Zurich premiere of Moses.

The IMP's Director Leahy-Hu, arriving for the dress rehearsal and opening night, kept D'Arcy informed of any developing news but it appeared the people at SHMRG were keeping a low profile. That Steele was prohibited from entering Germany under threat of arrest, though, wouldn't keep others from fulfilling his goals.

Watching rehearsals for the last act take shape was like a revelation, the reward for what we all had endured. It made us feel that whatever we had done was worth it. But it also drew us closer together knowing that Rob would not be there to share in its success. True, Garth Widor had been arrested and charged with committing Rob's murder but still there was no proof of Steele's involvement beyond his complicity in the plot, ordering it or not.

"Adrian Faust went up against Arachne Webb over Daisy's murder and barely escaped her wrath before she vaporized herself one step ahead of the police, leaving her company without an heir. When Adrian awoke to find himself consigned instead to a mail-room job, he was happy enough to be alive."

If there was any connection between the opera and Pansy Grunwald's murder, Rob wasn't one to put anything in writing: any similarities between Arachne Webb and N. Ron Steele were also conjecture. In fact, Rob did explain that Daisy was named 'Daisy' only because Gounod's heroine was Marguerite – French for daisy.

As we ended our dinner at the Festspielhaus Café on opening night, we raised a glass in Rob's memory and all those who'd died that horrible night, even the delusional Tr'iTone.

We left the café after D'Arcy spoke pleasantly with the restaurant's manager, and were about to cross the street to the Festspielhaus in time for a brief official reception before the curtain when I saw a familiar face in the crowd ahead of us – not, mercifully, Dhabbodhú: this was Arthur Lemm.

"What's he doing here," I asked D'Arcy, not sure what drew him other than his old rivalry with Rob. Lemm was surrounded by his usual entourage and a few official-looking businessmen.

Just then, the recently elected Board President, Christopher Babbila, took D'Arcy aside, shook his hand, whispered something to him, then walked away quite seriously after a condescending pat on the shoulder. D'Arcy, looking glum, shrugged his shoulders as he walked back toward us, as if he'd just received bad news.

"Well," he said very matter-of-factly, "the Board's once again passed over me in selecting a new executive director for Schweinwald, thinking it's time for a different direction, looking ahead to the future. Now that it will be a year-round, full-time international center," he nodded, "they've decided to appoint – Mr. Arthur Lemm."

"So that's what he's doing here," I said, "and that's how SHMRG's going to take care of matters, now. With their man in charge, they can control everything. I should've known..."

It was well known that Art Lemm was SHMRG's current Golden Boy, bringing in millions with his flashy, trashy works. One could only imagine the 'new direction' Schweinwald would be taking, now.

"I never thought Lemm had a chance with this board," D'Arcy mumbled. "SHMRG's influence is deeper than I imagined."

Given Lemm's attitude toward traditional conservatory training, it's clear the new Academy would never open as Rob envisioned it. Had his appointment happened earlier, he'd no doubt have canceled Rob's premiere.

"He doesn't take over till the new fall season begins, but I see dark days ahead," D'Arcy said, sadly. "I imagine next year the Academy's space will become SHMRG's international headquarters."

As we walked slowly toward the Festspielhaus, I tried sounding more upbeat.

"One day, the pendulum will swing back."

Not that I didn't imagine for a moment what damage could be done before the cycle would come around again, but yes: it might take a long time but it will happen.

"Think what Beethoven saw in his day," I considered, indicating his statue, "and look at everything that's happened since!"

My philosophizing didn't help D'Arcy who now had new set-backs to face, including no doubt looking for a job.

"And still Beethoven, dealing with his nephew, could compose those Late Quartets!"

It was odd, recalling then how Cameron and I made it home and figured Beethoven's letter was safe, again. Perhaps it was time to release the letter's contents to the world? We thought of announcing how he'd found it at the old castle, even if it was complicated to explain.

But now, if SHMRG controlled the Festival, they'd claim it's their property and that we had stolen it from them, seeking retribution and suing for its return under the International Antiquities Statutes. Such a letter would certainly be worth a great deal of money but what could we do about it?

Considering how Tr'iTone had come close to destroying it – and for what? – we had no idea what to expect. So it was with great curiosity we'd decided to read the thing.

It was addressed to Simon Sechter – later Director of the Schweinwald Academy – asking him to help Beethoven's 'special friend' with the income from a specific fund set up through a publisher, finding someplace to care for her if she became old and infirm, then, ultimately, a private final resting place. He asked some small, simple monument to him be set up nearby so he could gaze upon her grave, in particularly poignant words, that they could then be together through eternity.

Especially the haunting final line: "You, who are my fountain of inspiration – resonate within me – you, my Lost Chord."

"Zenn mentioned that," Cameron said. "We'd read it in the journal, too."

"Yes, and how, when we lose it, we're always searching for it." I knew Beethoven wasn't the only one.

News of Lemm's appointment certainly took the wind out of our sails, coming so suddenly after finishing our celebratory dinner, a direct slap at everything Rob and the festival's founders stood for. LauraLynn wondered if everything we'd been through, including losing Rob and his yet unwritten music, had been for nothing.

The world still got to hear Rob's opera as he'd completed it since SHMRG was unable to stop it. The question was, could they keep other interested companies from performing it?

Dylan tried not to be disappointed how little recognition we were receiving: we're the ones who'd saved the production and he was proud to have played some small part in it. The woman disguised as the old widow had been forgotten, I knew, but I was sorry Lionel couldn't attend.

Beneath the statue of a pensive Beethoven, brooding upon the world's inequities, stood Fictitia LaMouche and her boyfriend, Harper Roytt. They waved to get our attention as soon as they saw us. Harper, excited about playing in the orchestra, was dressed in a tux and Fictitia wore different layers of black.

"So, are you coming in to hear the performance?" I asked her.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world!"

Like seven happy wanderers reunited, we all linked arms and marched inside.

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
THE END
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

posted by Dick Strawser

This is the conclusion of the second novel in The Klangfarben Trilogy. The first novel is The Doomsday Symphony and the third novel is The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben.

I've already begun planning a fourth novel, though without Ms. Klangfarben, one that will continue the adventures of Dr. Kerr and his sidekick, Cameron Pierce, tentatively entitled In Search of Tom Purdue.

= = = = = = =
The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014

Monday, March 30, 2015

The Lost Chord: Chapters 60 & 61

The Lost Chord

(a classical music appreciation comedy thriller by Richard Alan Strawser: you can read it from the beginning, here.)

In the previous installment, Tr'iTone, exhilarated as if he were flying through the air, realized too late that, in fact, he was, his mind full of recollections as if his life were passing before him, discovering that to be an artist one might need to suffer but wasn't this overdoing it a bit? The man he met turned out not to be Beethoven, whose Fountain of Inspiration he'd hoped to find that would turn him into the Greatest Composer in the Universe, but a man who claimed to be his father, a man who said the woman pictured in this locket - the one with a wisp of hair - was his mother, the mother and father he never knew. he, born Luke van Rhiarden, was the last of the Falkensteins, his father was Garth Widor and his mother, the Countess Lisl von Falkenstein who later married some guy in New York named du Hicquè which rang one last tiny little bell with him as, having crashed onto the floor of the Schweinwald opera house, Tr'iTone gave up the ghost...

= = = = = = =
Chapter 60

For the first time in thirty-some years, Widor recalled his real name – Heinichen van Rhiarden, chief bodyguard to the Falkensteins – years melting away with the memory of his beloved, the Countess Lisl. And now, too late, Old Widor realizes he has found his son, the flesh-and-blood consequence of their mystical love.

It would have made a powerful operatic duet of the highest order, Widor examining the face of his son, a face so like his own, alas unsoftened by his Belovèd's beauty.

"All this," Widor said, turning,"everything – the grounds, the castle, the whole festival – was yours, the Last of the Falkensteins!"

There was a sudden jolt, sending a shiver through the shattered set, the pole impaling Tr'iTone's body listing precariously before it collapsed heavily, hitting Widor across his back, knocking him unconscious.

With the great thud echoing across the stage into the empty theater, everyone who had lurched forward to rescue him suddenly came to a halt realizing there was little they could do.

Widor, his arms sprawled, lay in a crumpled heap on the floor: could they manage to save him, now?

Everyone turned to peer into the shadows before they could see anything, hearing only this strange, pale, sing-songy voice that only gradually became the rotund figure of Peter Moonbeam, completely transformed.

"I gladly view the lovely world and dream beyond the wide horizon –
Shimmering in the east, the green horizon.
Grabbing the bald guy's collar, I will dreamily play upon his skull.
'Drat,' he thinks, 'a fleck of plaster!'
He goes, his pleasure ruined: the moon, that wicked mocker, mimics him.
He leisurely smokes his genuine Turkish tobacco, soaring boldly home to heaven,
Sun slowly sinking, a crimson royal crown.
She strangles him with it, his heart in bloody fingers – like eyes!
'Snowman of lyrics, Serene Highness of Moonlight,
They descend with beating wings, invisible monsters, into the hearts of men!'
He creeps, without thinking, to his beloved: 'Glances of Men avoid you.'
Her moonbeam-woven linens paint his face fashionably
Like in the secret fables – this wine we drink through the eyes."

Having found himself unexpectedly backstage, Peter Moonbeam first knocked against the platform trying to erase the memory of that body then started wiping the blood off his hands, leaving red smears everywhere.

At first he recoiled. "Two more bodies!" It was more than what was left of his mind could bear.

First of all, someone had tried to kill him, destroying his computer, then he overhead someone kill poor Schreiber. Whoever did that had threatened him again. Why was everybody after him?

The next thing he knew he was hiding in a room that already had a dead body in it: "What're the odds," he thought: "what kind of storage room is this?!" He didn't remember killing her, even accidentally. Why would anyone kill her, this Germanic blonde in the red dress?

While her agents pulled the still-breathing Widor out from under Tr'iTone's body, Leahy-Hu officially arrested him for Robertson Sullivan's murder, then announced SHMRG's plot to impede his opera's premiere had been foiled.

"Not quite, you interfering bitch," Steele shouted, holding up a CD case. "The only complete copy of Sullivan's opera!"

"Take a closer look at that label again, Mr. Steele," I shouted, clambering down from far above the stage."

"WTF," he screamed, "Kendra Does Carnegie Hall? A porno film? You scumbags!"

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

Klavdia Klangfarben – until only a few seconds ago, the Widow du Hicquè – ran through the alley behind what had been the only home she'd known since her second time through her childhood. How could the police have found her and, for that matter, why? (Not that they didn't have several reasons...) She barely had time to grab the bag-lady rags hidden in the hall closet for just such an occasion, so she could blend into the back streets of Manhattan – and wait.

A policeman had come out into the yard with a flashlight, looking for signs that someone had been there. Would they find her footprints or sic a dog on her scent? She thought she should just run down to the park and hide: she was well acquainted with the territory.

Somebody must have tipped them off, but who? Was it that sniveling little twit she'd just abducted who loved Beethoven? (The very idea was enough to make her spit on the ground.) Or had the original Widow du Hicquè recovered at the hospital and alerted the police to her true identity?

What if she couldn't return to the house and resume her life? Could she go back to the streets? How, she wondered, could she avenge herself on that dratted professor now?

* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *

After throwing the disc at Widor's prone form, Steele, cursing the incompetence of his underlings, ran off into the shadows, aided by the confusion that Moonbeam managed to create with his lamentations.

"Do not let that man get away," Leahy-Hu screamed as her agents took off after the disappearing SHMRG contingent.

Cameron returned to the backstage area, assisting the now calmer Lionel Roth, while I helped untie the sobbing LauraLynn. D'Arcy helped Moonbeam, still confused, over to a seat in the wings.

"But the disc you'd seen in Rob's pocket before he was killed and which was missing after his murder...? If this wasn't it," D'Arcy wondered, "what happened to Rob's original disc?"

"Mr. D'Arcy, if you'll take us back to the castle," I said, "I think I know where to look."


Chapter 61

While we gave the police our statements, security canvassed the crime scene and carefully extricated Tr'iTone's body from the set, throwing a tarp over him and the pole (the most likely COD), and D'Arcy helped the IMP set up an emergency interrogation room nearby since Widor almost immediately started regaining consciousness. As soon as he realized Steele left him for dead and hung him out to dry, so to speak, Widor began telling Leahy-Hu everything he knew – including some things he didn't.

On the drive back to the castle, D'Arcy filled us in on what he had learned in the interim and what Leahy-Hu discovered in the unfolding process of closing her case. It appears there were two simultaneous plots, but beyond that, she would call him later to fill him in.

When we pulled up to the castle courtyard, the crime scene guys and forensics were busy dealing with Scarpia's body and didn't notice that one of us slipped off toward the dungeon. Roth became the courteous host and led D'Arcy and me upstairs to the room where Tr'iTone kept his computer. Reaching into one of the desk drawers, Roth pulled out a CD and held it like a consecrated wafer before inserting it into the drive, waiting while it whirred to life.

There it was, its title page barely legible because Rob's software probably wasn't fully compatible with this computer's program, but enough to read "FAUSTUS INC. – music & libretto by Robertson Sullivan." I clicked through to the last page which included a double bar and the text, "completed at Benninghurst Colony."

Ominously, the date, barely visible beneath that, was the one which would be used in all Rob's biographical material, the day on which the composer died only hours after finishing it.

That was when D'Arcy's phone rang, Leahy-Hu calling him with an up-date.

"It seems Mr. Widor may be as gifted as any opera singer."

D'Arcy told me everything Leahy-Hu told him.

Yes, there were indeed two simultaneous plots: the one she was following and the one I was "looking into."

Months ago, Leahy-Hu and the IMP got wind Steele was concerned about the impact Sullivan's opera might have on SHMRG whether you called it "Art Imitating Life" or "Turning Art into Allegory," especially after Sullivan announced he's rewriting the ending of the opera so late it might jeopardize the opera's premiere.

Considering the tight-knit world of contemporary music knew Sullivan and SHMRG were on opposite sides of the musico-political spectrum, everyone would assume Rob's devil was a thinly veiled version of Steele.

When, in real life, Pansy Grunwald, who worked for Steele as he was building SHMRG into a world-wide corporation, died a rather sudden but not entirely accidental-looking death in her office, her boyfriend, a young composer working downstairs in the concert agency's office, was ready to go to the police.

While news of Pansy's and her boyfriend's suspicious deaths never became public, Barry Scarpia, now SHMRG's inside man at Schweinwald, heard that Sullivan was making some changes to his new opera's finale. This new plot-line, he reported, sounded uncomfortably too similar to Pansy's death – the character had even been named Daisy!

The whole idea was to get Robertson Sullivan to withdraw his opera or get Schweinwald to cancel its premiere: was that plot responsible for the murders of both Zeitgeist and Sullivan?

"Widor, Steele's point-man in this project," D'Arcy explained, "was only supposed to scare Rob with these different attacks, Leahy-Hu said – Zeitgeist, too, apparently – but something always seemed to go terribly, terribly wrong. When he broke into that wedding reception, he fired a warning shot but didn't mean to kill Rob's aunt."

Even when Rob found him that night ransacking his room at Benninghurst, there wasn't supposed to be a confrontation: the gun went off accidentally when Rob tried to take him down.

"Widor said Rob kept going on about some 'gizmo' he didn't have – both times – but it made no sense," D'Arcy went on, reporting what Leahy-Hu told him Widor had just confessed. "It was like Rob kept mistaking him for someone else," D'Arcy guessed, "like he confused one crime with another."

"But that would make complete sense," I said, "if SHMRG was after the opera and Tr'iTone's after Rob's mysterious artifact. So we're looking at two different crimes committed by two look-alike criminals? Look, even I kept confusing the two men when I'd see them. It's like I was seeing him everywhere! No doubt Tr'iTone or Dhabbodhú kept pestering Rob about this artifact's location – which Rob referred to as a 'gizmo' – and which is why Rob thought that's what Widor was after, too."

Ironically, considering these accidental deaths, the life Widor consciously chose to spare, bumping into him there in Benninghurst's driveway, was a man who would turn out to be his long-lost son.

Widor stole Rob's phone, then dropped it; Tr'iTone picked it up, then called me – we assumed he's the killer.

"So," I said, considering these new details, "Dhabbodhú left the dinner to become Tr'iTone and went to Rob's room, looking for some information about this fountain but found him already dead."

"Then Tr'iTone disfigured him in a rage, because, for all those years, he thought Rob told him nothing but lies?" Cameron had just entered, remembering the gruesome image confronting us that night.

"What exactly was Tr'iTone after? Could this Fountain of Inspiration be real?"

"There's only one way to find out..."

Even though most of the music was unreadable given the various incompatibility issues that existed between these different software programs, D'Arcy was too busy paging through the final pages of Rob's score to notice Cameron held an old letter, slightly singed around the edges, then carefully tucked it into his pocket.

"But at least now we know who Rob's murderer is," I said, "and we officially have the finished opera, if there's still time to prepare Act III for its scheduled premiere?"

"Oh, it'll be tight," D'Arcy said, looking up, "but I have to get a rush job on the vocal score for the singers and extract the instrumental parts for the orchestra. He already said there'd be no changes for the sets and costumes, so everything should still work on schedule."

When one of those annoyingly generic ringtones intruded, I was surprised Cameron was the one diving to retrieve a phone, eagerly reading a newly arrived text-message with a great sigh of relief.

Considering the phones we'd gone through tonight, I wondered how and where he might have gotten a new one.

"Good news – Harper and Fictitia texted me that Dylan's okay," he said. "They don't know why she'd abducted him, but the old woman escaped. Still, the good news is, Dylan's safe!"

That's when Roth looked up and spoke at length for the first time in a while – at least coherently. "That's probably the old Countess du Hicquè, one of Dr. Dhabbodhú's clients." He explained how she helped him secure some letter from Cameron's bank, after disguising herself as the family's lawyer.

"So that's how...?" Cameron looked over at him and scowled, checking the letter he'd just hidden in his pocket.

"Wait – didn't Widor say something that du Hicquè was Tr'iTone's real mother?"

Lionel was surprised how obsessed Dhabbodhú had become about Beethoven and about his following in The Master's own footsteps, plus this whole Fountain thing: perhaps he really did need a therapist.

He decided to forget the night Dhabbodhú and the widow got plastered and had celebratory sex on the couch.

Lionel busied himself with playing the affable host, making cups of tea for each of us, as he explained how, himself a master pick-pocket, he had seen this guy on the train who looked so much like Dr. Dhabbodhú – in fact, he thought it was another one of the doctor's disguises.

"When I saw him pull out and admire a CD jewel case, I decided to steal it as a prank, replacing it with some... well, another disc I had with me."

Unfortunately, Lionel realized too late it wasn't Dhabbodhú and he was upset to lose one of his favorite DVDs. "I couldn't go back and exchange the discs all over again, now. That's when you two noticed I was on the train," he shuddered, "before that maniac lit up his cigarette..."

When Security Officers Arabesk and LeVay arrived to arrest Lionel Roth as an accessory to the bombing of the Festspielhaus, D'Arcy explained that SHMRG's Agent Widor already confessed to that, as well. Technically, other than trespassing at the castle, there wasn't much to charge Lionel with beyond being an unwitting accomplice.

D'Arcy, still embarrassed by the apparent ease with which SHMRG managed to infiltrate Schweinwald's board and his security team, suggested instead they question Roth about the murders of Scarpia and Ritter.

= = = = = = =
To be continued...

posted by Dick Strawser

The novel, The Lost Chord, is a classical music appreciation comedy thriller completed in 2013, and is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2014